The Tribune

By Inigo ‘Naughty’ zenicazelaya

This week, as a controversial song by a Bahamian artist named ‘Mice’ rose to the level of national attention, I found myself thinking on the Voltairean principle: ‘I disapprove of what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it.’

With this is mind, I had my first listen to the song that was causing all the drama. After all, as a radio personality, my ‘broughtupcy’ has included a steady diet of NWA, Ice-T, Tupac Shakur, Dr Dre, Snoop Dogg and more recently Kendrick Lamar and J Cole. There’s nothing a local rapper could say that would surprise me, right?

Wrong.

In fact, the more I listened to the lyrics and subsequent outcry, the more I realised this controversy has more layers than a divided onion. There’s the shocking mention of the Prime Minister’s family, a verbal takedown of specific parliamentarians and there is ample mention of the police.

In fact, outside the Prime Minister (and the Progressive Liberal Party in general), the main antagonist appears to be ‘the police’ in the rapper’s mind. Which is why I when I heard the Royal Bahamas Police Force (RBPF) had taken two men (presumably the artist and a producer) into custody in connection with the song I could only shake my head.

I know the song (whose name, by the way, is so offensive and expletive laden we can’t even print it) is far from easy listening. Believe me, this is not your Grandma’s inspirational tune. It’s raw, gritty, overly hyperbolic, vitriolic, insulting, disturbing and downright dismissive of the norms and mores that Bahamians have grown comfortable with. Very few people in this country find it right or decent to bring the families of even the most detested politicians into the conversation. No mention of the wives, children. Ever.

It is that unspoken rule that has allowed many politicians with shambolic personal lives to persevere; you’ve got five baby mamas, a girlfriend, sweetheart, personal “assistant’’ and a wife? We won’t talk about that, for the sake of the wife.

So I suppose the first misstep the now infamous rapper made was bringing the Christies into the conversation in such a degrading way. I don’t know Mrs Christie personally, but I was offended by her treatment in the song. Regardless of where you stand on the political divide, it was wrong, and unnecessary. Same goes for the Christie children. Especially the youngest son.

I suspect the lyrical insults hurled at the Christie family were the main impetus for the overreaction by the police force. But as distasteful as the lyrics were, their move to arrest the two young men became fodder for Bahamians commenting on social media. The men were being held for ‘definition’ and ‘liable,’ said the police on national tv, instead of ‘defamation’ and ‘libel’. Which many viewed as the officer misspeaking. (Little did they know, trumped-up criminal charges merit trumped-up names, so touche.)

In a twist of life imitating art, the artist had rapped of the police: “He grabbed me by the neck because I showed him up, he tried to choke me out but he wasn’t strong enough.” And indeed whatever case the RBPF was trying to concoct to hold the men on was so weak they had to release the men and defer to the Attorney General’s office. We are still waiting on the AG to chime in, and if past cases are any example ‘this ga be long’.

The second misstep by the artist was allowing the anger and disdain for those whom he thinks have aggrieved him to become a distorted mess. Make no mistake about it, there is a glimmer of genius and talent in the song, and without the verse that many Bahamians find reprehensible we would be having a wholly different conversation today.

We would be talking about both the role of (and stress placed on) police officers in such a dangerous city. We would be talking about how young persons desperately want a change, and are moving steadily toward the Democratic National Alliance (whom the artist shouted out) in search of it. We would be talking about how there is something stirring in the youth of this country, a cauldron, that’s about to bubble over.

We would be talking about how we have all heard or read worse things written about the PM, certain ministers and certain opposition politicians on Facebook on a daily basis. Ninety per cent of the country would be behind bars if the police started grabbing everyone who ‘dissed’ a politician.

Although I disagree with a lot of what the artist said in ‘that song’ I refer back to a great debate between American intelligentsia Michael Eric Dyson and Dr Boyce Watkins on rap and hip hop, the gist of which challenges us to not only examine offensive lyrics but to examine the reason such lyrics exist at all.

And so I stand on the Voltairean principle, meaning I may disapprove with what you say but will defend to the death your right to say it. (On second thought, scratch the death part. In the words of Kendrick Lamar, “I love myself”.)

• Inigo ‘Naughty’ Zenicazelaya is the resident stand-up comic at Jokers Wild Comedy Club at the Atlantis, Paradise Island, resort and presents ‘Mischief and Mayhem in da AM’ from 6am to 10am, Monday to Friday, and ‘The Press Box’ sports talk show on Sunday from 10am to 1pm on KISS FM 96.1. He also writes a sports column in The Tribune on Tuesday. Comments and questions to naughty@tribunemedia.net